


Sawamura Detective Agency

by Amrynth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21855877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amrynth/pseuds/Amrynth
Summary: Azumane is worried about his boss, Sugawara, so he hires Private Detective Sawamura to investigate.  Don't worry, Detective Sawamura is on the case!
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu, Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 124
Collections: Haikyuu Secret Santa 2019





	Sawamura Detective Agency

Daichi glanced up from the newspaper in his hands, straining to see across the car parked outside and confirm that the tall, broad stranger was still loitering on the other side of the street. He’d been there for several minutes and Daichi was beginning to consider going out to see if he was lost, but he’d seen that look before, the way the tall stranger kept looking at Daichi’s door and then back to the phone in his hand—he wasn’t lost; he was trying to decide if he wanted to go into the storefront or not.

After running a detective agency for five years, Daichi was accustomed to potential clients hesitating on the threshold. The stranger outside was big, taller than average and had his hair pulled back into a knot. He looked threatening at first glance with a scruffy bit of beard just starting to come in on his chin and the wide expanse of his shoulders. At first glance, Daichi wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck in an alley with the stranger. But those same broad shoulders were curved forward everytime he leaned to look at him, as though trying to be smaller. He looked, from the perspective of a professional investigator, worried.

When the stranger finally started to cross the narrow street toward Sawamura Detective Agency, Daichi picked up his newspaper and became very interested in a story about a herd of rogue goats that had gotten loose in a neighborhood and eaten all the shrubbery. He was able to look up when the little bell hanging over the door jingled and finally got a better look at the man. 

Without cars intermittently in the way, Daichi could see that the stranger was nearly as tall and intimidating as he had guessed from a distance. In fact, he was taller than Daichi had given him credit for from a distance, wearing a grey jacket over a white tee and blue jeans. He didn’t revise his initial impression though, that the intimidation was just the heavy eyebrows and scruffy bit of beard. Up close, the man had worried eyes and was nervously playing with the phone in his hand.

“Hi. Sawamura Detective Agency. You finally decided to come in?” Daichi put a smile in his voice, hopefully not teasing him too badly about lingering so long outside.

“Ahh.” The man looked bashful rather than irritated, which was a good sign as far as Daichi was concerned. He rubbed the back of his head and laughed. The change was immediate, instead of being this tall, scary stranger; the man looked like someone Daichi wanted to know. He was left with the impression he ought to smile more. “You saw that? Sorry. I’m Azumane. Is Mr. Sawamura in?”

Daichi was used to being mistaken for someone who worked for the detective, rather than the detective himself. He grinned and leaned on his elbow while he folded the paper he’d been pretending to read. “That would be me. What brings you to the agency, Mr. Azumane?” 

The man acknowledged the introduction with a nod, but his face became nervous again, heseemed like he couldn’t make up his mind. 

“Listen. Mr. Azumane, you’ve had… plenty of time to decide if you wanted to talk to someone or not. Why don’t you tell me the problem and I’ll let you know if it’s something I can help you with or not. Can I get you some tea?” Daichi didn’t immediately rise to his feet as he offered tea. He wasn’t the sort of private detective that had goons with guns coming into his office, but there was an edge to Azumane that if he moved too fast the other man might bolt like a startled horse. 

“Can you keep this between us? Like—like an agreement?” Azumane turned pink around the ears as he asked this. But he moved to sit in the chair across from Daichi’s seat and set his phone on his thigh.

“Do you want a contract or a handshake? Who referred you, Azumane? Ask them if I can be trusted with secret information,” Daichi asked. He got to his feet, turning on the small electric kettle on the sideboard. He got two mugs, one with his company logo on it and one with the Karasuno High School logo. It made Daichi smile to think about his school and it sometimes made for a good topic of conversation for nervous clients.

Azumane started to reach for his phone but controlled his hands instead and answered the question. “Shimizu Kiyoko came to you a few months back when she was trying to find an old acquaintance of hers.”

With his back to Azumane and his attention seemingly on the tea, Daichi was easily able to hide his eyebrows rising. If he ran in the sort of circles Shimizu came from, this was a client with a lot of money and a lot of potential for things to hide. “She did. How is Miss Shimizu?”

“Getting married in a month.” There was a note of almost panic in Azumane’s voice. “I need you to look into someone. I work for—I work for someone very high profile and, um—” 

Daichi set a cup of tea in front of Azumane while the taller man turned the phone in his hands over and over again. 

“Let’s start with who you work for. You yourself are not in any sort of trouble, are you Azumane?” Daichi asked. Maybe if he helped the man talk around the situation it would help him relax enough to talk about it.

“I can’t say. No, I know it’s stupid, I’m sorry. But he thinks he’s found his soulmate and if—I’m not in any trouble, no.” Azumane put his phone back on his thigh and turned the mug on the desk a few times. 

“He doesn’t have any staff to look into this soulmate?” Daichi asked. “Background checks can include soulmarks sometimes.” 

Azumane nodded, eyes on the tea in his mug. “I looked. But my instincts say there’s something wrong with him and Ko—my boss isn’t the sort of listen once he’s made up his mind.”

Daichi combeda hand through his hair and breathed a heavy sigh. False soulmarks were pretty serious. There were stories among the elite of people going missing over soulmarks and surgeries to remove them in order to keep them a secret. How serious Azumane’s boss’s problem was might balance on who his boss was. And, if the boss’s new boyfriend had found out what his mark looked like, just how he’d found out. 

“I think you’ll have to tell me who your boss is, Azumane. It stays between us, you have my word.” 

He knew he had a trustworthy face and he wasn’t above using it to his advantage. Daichi was short and broad and was not fond of trying to intimidate information out of people. Often it was simpler and easier to buy them a coffee and talk them into what he needed from them. Across the desk, Azumane picked up the mug and took a drink of scalding tea with immediate regret as he swallowed it. 

“You okay?” Daichi was trying not to laugh and grabbed a handkerchief from his front pocket to offer it to Azumane. 

“Yes. I was just—I needed to think. He doesn’t even know I’m here, Mr. Sawamura.” Azumane accepted the handkerchief and coughed into it.

“Sawamura is fine. Azumane, do you have feelings for your boss?” Daichi waved his hands to indicate that Azumane could keep the square of blue cloth for the time being. 

For the second time, Azumane coughed like the was choking, turning red in the face as he did so. “Not like that, no.”

The sheer level of incredulity in his voice seemed genuine enough. Azumane picked up the phone from where it was sliding off his leg and moved his finger across the screen for a few minutes. He then turned it to face Daichi, revealing the face of his employer.

Daichi recognized the face after only a second, the silver-blonde hair, amber eyes and distinctive mole just beneath his left eye. Sugawara Koushi, heir to the Sugawara fortune and maybe one of the most eligible bachelors on the planet, was smiling at the camera. Knowledge of his soulmark, in order to manufacture a false one, was the sort of information people were willing to kill for.

“Ah. Well. That does complicate things doesn’t it?”

-

The cafe was far trendier than anything Daichi would have chosen for himself. It was miles away from the part of town he was familiar with but thanks to Nishinoya’s assistance he at least looked like he belonged. The fancy laptop was definitely the photographer’s, not Daichi’s, and he wasn’t really sure how to do much more than pretend to be writing a book. He’d only recently graduated past the flip phone he’d been using since college and the laptop was a lot to take in. What was so wrong with old fashioned note taking? 

Between the laptop, prescriptionless glasses and swapping his jersey jacket for a leather coat, Daichi wasn’t sure if even Nishinoya, or his own mother, would recognize him on the street. 

He’d been working on research into Sugawara and his boyfriend while sitting in the cafe. The Azumane family had been working for the Sugawara family since before the client or his boss had been born. Hell, Daichi hadn’t been born when the Azumanes had, depending on the source, sworn fealty to the Sugawaras. Azumane, the client, had been working as a bodyguard to the young Sugawara since they graduated from college. 

Daichi tried not to read gossip columns about Sugawara but it was impossible not to when he was gathering information. He had graduated from somewhere in the middle of his class at a prestigious college, a subject of a lot of tabloids at the time. Studying western classics; Greek literature and philosophy to be precise. Daichi supposed he didn’t need a more useful degree— he was going to inherit more money than he could spend in a lifetime. 

A deeper search showed that Sugawara had been making use of that inheritance already. He had several charities that he supported and had a tendency to show up and actually help with those charities in person. One of those charities was several sports clubs in a small, rural school that would have had a hard time providing good equipment for them. He’d met the boyfriend in question working at one of the charities.

There wasn’t a lot to turn up on the boyfriend. Daichi was going to have to stop spending so much time drinking expensive coffee and start calling in favors with his old associates if he wanted to find out anything other than what was available on social media. It was all a veneer and he thought Azumane’s instincts were right, there was something about him that struck Daichi as off. Something that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. 

Although, to be fair, it could have been that he kept walking into that same cafe, arm in arm with the most gorgeous human that Daichi had ever seen. Sugawara was handsome, Daichi had seen his picture here and there most of his adult life, but he’d never seen him in person. The first time they’d come into the cafe while Daichi was there, he’d forgotten to breathe until the room started to go dark. Their eyes had met, across the room, and Daichi still found himself distracted by the precise shade of hazel days later. 

While he was ruminating on the matter, the waiter at the cafe swapped his empty coffee cup for a fresh latte. 

“Sorry, I didn’t order—” Daichi looked up from his fake novel (it was about a crow that wanted to climb a mountain), startled.

“It’s from the gentleman,” the waiter reassured him. 

Daichi followed the direction he nodded to one of the private rooms where he could see the shape of someone working at a laptop but couldn’t make out any other details. 

“Uh. Tell him thanks,” he said after a few seconds to process. It wasn’t everyday that Daichi had mysterious strangers buying him a drink. There was a second before he hesitated to drink it, thinking about that ominous feeling when it had sunk in who he was investigating for Azumane—Sugawara’s boyfriend—who could be a liar capable of the level of deception and sophistication that he had managed to copy a soulmark on someone like Sugawara.

The waiter walked away and his level of interest was much more like someone watching an intriguing drama than it was someone looking to see if their part in a murder plot was going to take place or not. Daichi decided to stop being paranoid and take a sip of the latte. A few seconds, and he felt fine. Of course he was fine. Feeling silly, Daichi resumed typing a few lines about a crow’s feelings about the sky while waiting for the couple to come in. 

It was well beyond the time that Sugawara usually arrived and Daichi was feeling anxious he had blown his cover somehow. He’d never actually spoken to either of the people he was observing, letting his gut give him an initial impression of them. How they interacted, the way Sugawara’s smile made the room light up and time stop, and how his companion’s smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes in the same way. 

Frustrated, Daichi packed up the laptop and left, dropping his second coffee in the bussing tray on his way out. A glance confirmed that the stranger who’d bought his coffee was still in the private room but the door was shut. Daichi left his contact information, just a name and phone number written on a napkin, at the counter with the barista, not sure if it would be rude to interrupt.

-

Two days later, the same interruption of what had been a familiar routine left Daichi frustrated again. Sugawara and his boyfriend had been coming in for coffee and scones for weeks. But his mysterious benefactor bought him a coffee again and he kept looking up from his fake novel to see if he could catch a glimpse of him. 

His phone buzzed and Daichi expected it to be Nishinoya, reminding him that he was well past their agreed upon date for returning the borrowed laptop. Instead there was a text from a number he didn’t know.

_You look like a prairie dog._

Daichi just blinked at the message for a moment, looking around the cafe before settling his gaze on the stranger in the private room. 

Do u liv thr? Id lik 2 thx u. Daichi looked at his own text before erasing and composing it three times and trying to figure out something that sounded less like he had just learned to text from his granny. That was untrue, his gran had far better texting skills than he did. 

_Id like to thank you._

_Not today. I don’t trust strangers. But if you keep being a good boy, maybe._

Daichi felt himself get red in the face and had to put his phone down and then immediately picked it back up to be sure he’d read that right. He was halfway into typing that he could be a good boy before he put his phone down again. Once he’d had a chance to drink his coffee and compose his thoughts for a moment, Daichi picked up his phone to respond. 

_Thank u for the coffee. You work here alot?_

_Daily but not always in the private room_

_Have I seen you?_

_Yes._

Leaning back in his chair, Daichi tried to think if there was anyone at the cafe that had paid any particular attention to him. Nothing came to mind. The barista maybe but he was not on his phone and making coffee for another customer. He couldn’t put a face to the words and the teasing. He’d have to ask Nishinoya later if maybe, just maybe, it was flirting. 

_Sorry no bells_

_Ha. That’s okay. I don’t stand out much on my own._

_Thats hardly fair, bet Id know youre face if you came out_

_Perhaps. You’ve hardly been a good boy yet, have you?_

He found himself smiling at the phone, enjoying a conversation with a stranger like he hadn’t in a long time. How long had he been working most nights and too busy to go out, too busy to meet handsome men his own age to have enjoyable conversations with. Work. The smile faded and Daichi sighed. 

_I should get going_

_Don’t let me stop you. But you know you can text me even if you’re not at the cafe, right?_

_Of course_

After several seconds of trying to find the right emoji Daichi gave up, choosing to just send the text. He closed the laptop and slid it into his backpack and was soon on a train back to the familiar end of town. The fake glasses were placed in their case and into his backpack as soon as he was far enough from the cafe and he didn’t expect to run into anyone that would recognize him. Did Sugawara’s boyfriend have this sort of trouble? Juggling two different identities. One identity where he was Sugawara’s soulmate and another where he had the resources and lack of morals to fake that. 

Huh. Daichi hadn’t even noticed that, while texting the stranger buying him coffee, he hadn’t thought about Sugawara for the first time since taking the job. No. More accurately, his thoughts had been consumed by the heir since he’d seen him in person at the cafe. It was interesting but perhaps he shouldn’t let himself get too distracted from the job at hand.

_What should I call you?_

_So ur not just unknown number_

_Coffee Daddy_

_No seriously_

_That’s my suggestion. Take it or leave it_

_Im not calling anyone daddy_

Even as he sent the text, Daichi was smiling to himself on the bus. 

_Who_

_Is_

_Your_

_Coffee Daddy?_

_No._

_Then something boring._

_Because that was pure gold_

Daichi leaned back against the seat on the bus, watching the city go by briefly. He had a long ride so he wasn’t worried about missing his stop this early, it was just nice to see this side of the city. 

_OK Iv named you_

_What did you put?_

_I guess u have to come out of ur room to find out_

_You wound me. What are you always working on?_

Somehow it hadn’t occurred to Daichi that being undercover, and keeping that second identity, meant he might have to lie. He fidgeted with his phone. Of course the job came first. Sugawara’s smiling face and hazel eyes flashed through his memory. The job definitely came first and he needed to stop playing around at the cafe because he liked seeing the man even in passing. 

_Working on a book_

_Oh a novelist. I’d have been buying you coffee before that if I knew you were actually working._

_Keep it in mind next time I’m there_

He slid his phone into his pocket and rose to step off the bus. He needed to dig deeper if he was going to solve the case and get to where he could admit who he was to his mysterious coffee patron. Until he'd gotten to the bottom, he would have to lie. And until he was done lying to them it was better not to get more involved than he already was. 

-

"Yeah, thanks. If you could meet me at my office that would be good." Daichi cradled his ribs while he spoke. The bus wasn't intentionally hitting every bump in the road he was sure, but to his body it felt like it was. "I know it's late but I think this is something you should know now, Azumane. Not later. But it's not the sort of thing I want to tell you over the phone. If you get there before me my partner should already be there."

Daichi was happy to get off the phone so that he could devote more of his energy to trying to decide if he was bleeding internally and also to make sure he hadn't been followed onto the bus. He didn't think he had. This was probably why detectives in old timey movies had cars of their own and didn't rely on busses to get them from place to place. But that was why he had Nishinoya waiting at his office. If he needed to go to the hospital, Nishinoya would see to it that he got there. And that he got appropriately given shit for getting his ass kicked. 

He was probably fine. There wasn't a lot a hospital would do for bruised ribs and it was much easier to avoid any potential involvement with the police. Daichi leaned back and flipped his phone open again.

  
_Haven't seen you lately._

_It's hard to buy a hardworking author coffee if he doesn't come into the cafe._

_Is everything okay?_

_I'm sorry if I've been too forward. I really enjoy talking to you._

For nearly a week Daichi had engaged in playful banter with his coffee patron. But these messages, spread out over a handful of days had remained unanswered as he'd gotten more involved in his case and the weight of lying to someone who was no longer a stranger got heavier. His fingers hovered over the buttons on his phone for several minutes, he even half composed some messages but never sent them. Eventually Daichi just put his phone back in his pocket. 

When the bus pulled into the familiar stop a few blocks from his office, Daichi gingerly stepped off the bus. He didn't hold his ribs when he walked, it was better to keep his head up and his hands free, just in case he was followed. He lingered at the stop after the bus pulled away just to make sure none of the cars behind it pulled over. Once he felt it he was in the clear, Daichi made his way back to the office.

He expected a potentially tense atmosphere when he walked in, Nishinoya hated when anyone got injured on what he considered to be his watch. They were all his watches, according to him, and therefore Daichi shouldn't be getting into any scrapes alone. But when he walked into the office, Nishinoya and Azumane were on opposite sides of the room about as far as possible with the given space. 

"Am I interrupting something here?" Daichi asked, locking the door behind him. 

"No," Azumane answered, not making eye contact with him or with Nishinoya.

"Yes." Nishinoya's answer was just as fast as Azumane's. He glared over at Daichi as though whatever it was, somehow it was Daichi's fault. "Why didn't you tell me your client was Azumane?"

He used the surname like a weapon, letting it slash across the room with the same menace of a sword or whip. Azumane's deep, brown eyes moved down to his hands. Finally he looked up at Daichi with a strange, apologetic smile. But when he spoke, those eyes turned to Nishinoya and stayed there. "Yuu." His voice was soft, almost sad, like he wasn't sure what else to say to him. 

Nishinoya's head snapped over to look at him. Daichi's sometimes-partner was short, his hair dyed with a blonde streak in the front. At least, Daichi had always assumed it was dyed, but it had been the same the whole time he'd known the photographer. His eyes were always sharp and intense, it was one of the first things Daichi had noticed about him, and the way he saw everything. Right now that sharp look was directed at Azumane. 

"Unless you're here to apologize-"

"Yuu I'm sorry." Azumane's apology was instant and genuine. 

"You—what?" Nishinoya's aggressive defense faltered and he finally saw Azumane instead of merely looking at him. 

"I never should have left while I was angry and I shouldn't have waited to call."

Nishinoya laughed; it was probably supposed to be a hard, sharp noise, but it sounded almost manic. "You're sorry? I was the one who didn't call you, Asahi."

Tentatively, Azumane smiled across the room at Nishinoya. "It's not too late to call. Or is it?"

"I don't have your number anymore," Nishinoya admitted. 

"Oh, I can—Sawamura has it. But I should listen to what he called me here for first."

"Oh yeah." Nishinoya jumped to his feet and crossed over to the fridge in the back, pulling an ice pack from the freezer. It was like a wall had come down and he was allowed to get closer to Azumane when before it had been impossible to find a neutral path to the freezer. "Here's your ice. Are you okay, Sawamura?"

"Yeah. I will be. Azumane, I have fairly good proof that the soulmark is a fake. There's a woman, a nanny from when Mr. Sugawara was young, who knew what his mark looked like. I can't prove that it has anything to do with the boyfriend, but right before he suddenly appeared with a mark identical to Mr. Sugawara's, she disappeared for a week before turning up dead." Daichi shifted his shirt just enough to place the ice pack against his ribs, flinching at the initial contact but then beginning to relax as it soothed the ache.

"What?" Azumane's eyes widened. 

Seemingly despite himself, Nishinoya crossed the distance between them and put a hand on Azumane's shoulder. 

"You think—Do you really think someone killed her? All his former employees are like family. I don't know if he knows she's—This is going to devastate him," Azumane said, rubbing his face with his hand. 

"Asahi, it's going to be okay," Nishinoya reassured him.

"I have to tell him," Azumane said, eyes not really focussed in the room but gazing off somewhere else. 

"We can go together, if you like," Daichi offered after exchanging a look with Nishinoya. "Nishinoya will drive, you don't look like we should let you leave alone. And they've already killed for this once, we should tell Mr. Sugawara before anymore time passes."

"Right. I should. Yeah." Azumane got to his feet, still looking off into the middle distance. 

"What's your boss's phone number, Asahi? Sawamura or I can text him to see if he's with the asshole or not. Or, better, hand me your phone," Nishinoya was guiding Azumane into his jacket while getting his car keys.

Azumane handed his phone to Nishinoya. After about two tries Nishinoya had the phone unlocked and was working on sending a text. He took over helping Azumane, helping him into the back seat of the car before getting into the front.

"You got an eye for spotting a possible tail tonight?" Daichi asked in a soft voice he hoped wouldn't carry into the back seat.

"Always."

"How'd you know the passcode for his phone?" 

Nishinoya glanced over at him. "It's the day Asahi and I met."

"Ah." Daichi wasn't quite sure what to say about that. He'd known Nishinoya had a soulmate and that the two of them weren't together. It happened. Just because two people were compatible, compatible in a way that they couldn't stop thinking about the other person when they were apart, didn't mean they could always make it work. There were entire reality TV genres dedicated to national searches for soulmates and then throwing them into situations together to see if they would make it or not. "So then he's..."

"Yeah." Nishinoya glanced at the rearview mirror where he could presumably see Azumane. "He is." There was a little smile on his lips as he adjusted the mirror, soft and unlike anything Daichi had seen on his face. It made him feel warm, seeing him look like that, even if he wasn't sure he would ever find the same. He could be happy for his friend.

“Azumane, Mr. Sugawara is texting you back, h—oh. Can you grab your phone?” Daichi tried to twist to pass the phone to the back seat but stopped when it pulled painfully.

“Are you sure you don’t want to be dropped off at a hospital, Sawamura?” Nishinoya asked.

He thought about hazel eyes and a beauty mark, and the idea of Sugawara being in danger made Daichi’s chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with bruised ribs. “I’m sure.” 

“He’s by himself,” Azumane spoke up from the back seat after a moment. “It sounds like they had an argument.”

“Good. At least that’s gone right tonight,” Daichi said, closing his eyes and leaning back into the passenger seat. He could feel each heartbeat, even with an ice pack on his ribs, throbbing the passage of time. 

Daichi must have fallen asleep, though it didn’t feel like his thoughts had stopped whirling. Sugawara’s face, his hazel eyes and bewitching conversation with a stranger by text all twisted around in his head and he wasn’t sure what to think of any of it. He only closed his eyes for a moment to try and let his thoughts settle and when he opened them again, thinking that Nishinoya must have stopped at a light when in fact they were stopped in front of a large gate as Azumane leaned forward to speak to a camera over Nishinoya’s shoulder. 

“We here?” Daichi sat up, surprised by his voice coming out rough and throaty. 

“Welcome back,” Nishinoya grinned at him while the gate opened. “You looked so peaceful we didn’t want to wake you up. Did you know you snore?”

Azumane leaned back in the back seat, his hand retracting from a small soft touch on Nishinoya’s neck that Daichi chose not to notice. 

“No one’s complained yet,” Daichi mumbled.

“Someone would have to be sleeping in your bed for someone to complain,” Nishinoya answered. 

“Look, the right person isn’t going to complain. Probably.” Daichi laughed though, appreciating the well-meaning jibe. 

He leaned to look out the window, admiring the house they’d pulled into a roundabout in front of. It wasn’t the most ostentatious thing Daichi had ever seen; he’d seen some real gaudy mansions while he’d been doing his job as an investigator. The Sugawara estate wasn’t what Daichi would call compact, but it had impressive grounds now that they were on this side of the well-maintained privacy hedge. Maybe he could talk Azumane into allowing him to at least tour the grounds once the job was done. The house was more what Daichi would call a manor, old and well kept and situated so deep within the grounds that he couldn’t even hear the sounds of traffic. 

“How far did we drive?” Daichi asked, following Azumane’s lead and opening to door to step out of the car.

“Not that far. We only listened to you snore for, what, a half hour?” Nishinoya answered. 

“Be nice to him, Yuu, he’s hurt,” Azumane admonished gently. 

Daichi left the body-temperature ice-pack in the car before closing the door behind him, breathing a slow, steadying breath to test his ribs. Not great. “Are we done? Are we ready to talk to Mr. Sugawara?”

“Sure, he’s expecting us,” Azumane let himself in through the front door.

Daichi had seen enough television to suspect that there was some sort of servant’s entrance they ought to have been using. The entrance left him speechless and marvelling at the smallest details. He was trying not to make his ribs hurt twisting around to try and see everything when footfalls on hardwood drew his attention away from the house itself to those in it.

Sugawara strolled into the room and Daichi couldn’t breathe for the second time that night. It had nothing to do with his ribs. He hadn’t been to the cafe for slightly over a week, and so hadn’t had the opportunity to see him in person. Somehow he’d forgotten how beautiful he was; the shape of his lips and the exact color of his eyes. 

“Asahi what is-” Sugawara stopped in his tracks, hazel eyes roaming the group and settling on Daichi. He wasn’t sure he’d registered on the man’s radar at the cafe, let alone enough to be identified outside of his writer look. Those hazel eyes were rimmed with red and slightly puffy, the look of someone who had been recently crying. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s my fault,” Azumane answered before Daichi could. “It’s a long story but I hired him to look into your boyfriend, he’s a private investigator.” 

The look Sugawara was giving Daichi didn’t so much as waver to Azumane when he spoke, but something changed about the gaze. His eyes changed from open and surprised to closed, guarded and unreadable. “So you’re paying him to investigate my love life.” 

“That’s not it at all, Koushi,” Azumane’s voice hardened. “I didn’t, I don’t trust him, but I trust Mr. Sawamura.”

“Do you?” Sugawara’s eyes finally moved away from Daichi and it was like having a weight removed from his chest and he could breathe again. 

“Um. Mr. Sugawara, if I may.” Daichi spoke up. “Mr. Azumane came to me because he was worried that your uh, boyfriend had somehow fabricated a soulmark to match yours.” He wasn’t sure why it was hard to call someone else Sugawara’s boyfriend but he stumbled over the word and felt his face warm. It was annoying that Nishinoya was watching him as though something fascinating was taking place in front of him.

“I doubt that. There are very few people who have seen my soulmark. They are all very well paid and in my family’s employ still or…” There Sugawara paused again, eyebrows drawing together.

“You met him just after your old nanny passed, didn’t you. I’m sorry if it’s harsh to say it like that.” Causing Sugawara pain was the last thing Daichi wanted to do. “It’s too much of a coincidence to overlook, isn’t it?” 

Sugawara’s eyes were hard when he looked back to Daichi and he frowned. “Asahi, if you don’t mind I’d like a moment of your time where we wont have this acquaintances of yours involved in the conversation.”

Azumane let go of Nishinoya’s hand and walked to the other side of the room, speaking in urgent, hushed tones with Sugawara. 

“You like him,” Nishinoya said, almost before the other two were out of range of hearing. 

“What? No. What?” Daichi shook his head, denying too hard. “I’m just worried about what will happen if this guy gets into his life too deep. For Azumane’s sake.” 

To avoid making eye contact though, Daichi pulled out his phone and automatically went to the one person not in the room that he’d been texting the most frequently. 

_Is everything okay?_

_I'm sorry if I've been too forward. I really enjoy talking to you._

_Im sorry I haven’t responded_

_Ive been involved in a case_

“Daichi look me in the eye while you tell me you didn’t have some sort of like, I don’t know, reaction to Sugawara,” Nishinoya was saying.

Seconds after Daichi hit the send button, there was a pair of chimes from Sugawara’s back pocket, making the silver-blonde start. Azumane and Nishinoya didn’t know who to look at, but Sugawara looked over his shoulder at Daichi while Daichi couldn’t pull his eyes away.

_No way._

Another chime.

“Shit.” The swear sounded out of place coming from Sugawara.

“Sugawara, what’s your soulmark?” Nishinoya asked, interrupting the silence that had fallen on the foyer.

Standing on the far side of the room, Sugawara narrowed his eyes at Nishinoya. “That’s not really any of your business. I’m not going to tell some random fellow I’ve only just met something like that.”

“It’s a bird, right? Ow, stop it, Daichi,” Nishinoya glared at him, rubbing his side where he’d just elbowed him. “I’ve seen you swimming like, a hundred times, I know what your soulmark looks like. Is it right here?” 

Sugawara’s eyes widened again and he looked to Azumane, alarmed. “Did you—no. You didn’t. How did you…?”

Daichi’s head was spinning with each new revelation, he was supposed to be the private investigator and he had somehow missed all of this. But he heard what he needed to make sure Sugawara was safe, to make sure his flirting partner from the cafe was safe. “Please, Mr. Sugawara, if we match then there’s no way this guy is your soulmate. I don’t want anything from you,” he said but paused because that was a blatant lie. He wanted the world, he wanted sunday afternoons and cartoons in the morning and so much. But only if Sugawara wanted it. “I don’t expect anything from you. But if we’re a match, please don’t let this asshole take advantage of you.”

Azumane spoke up, clearing his throat first. “I—um. He has a point, I never would have told Yuu, uh Nishinoya that.”

There was a pause while Sugawara considered, his arms crossed over his chest. One hand had protectively covered the place on his ribs just below his arm where Daichi had his soulmark. 

“It’s not just a bird. It’s a crow,” Daichi said. Sugawara looked at him and he risked a little bit of a smile. “I didn’t mean to trick you. I thought, uh. I thought maybe when this was all over, I could tell you the truth. But if you were a regular I couldn’t until I made sure you weren’t in danger. I’m sorry.”

Sugawara seemed to realize where his hand was and moved it, hands down into his pockets for somewhere to put them. “If you’re so certain, take your shirt off, Mr. Sawamura.”

Daichi sighed. “Right here?” 

There was a small, playful light in Sugawara’s eyes when their gazes met across the room. For the first time since they’d come to the big house, Daichi could see how this near-stranger he’d admired from afar could be the playful flirt he’d been texting. “Yes, I think so. Off with it.” He gestured imperiously with one hand.

He accepted the challenge with a little grin. The mood had somehow changed in the room and Daichi’s shoulders relaxed as he pulled his coat off and handed it to Nishinoya. His friend had an annoying “I told you so” attitude about the matter. He’d guessed Sugawara might be his soulmate about five minutes before the rest of them figured it out. Daichi grabbed the back of his t-shirt and pulled it off over his head. He caught Sugawara’s eye across the room, and grinned at the blush on his cheeks and the way those hazel eyes widened when he got a proper look at Daichi’s lean, muscular torso. Once his shirt was off he turned at an angle to display the crow on his ribs. 

Sugawara seemed at a loss for words, but his free hand moved to the same spot on his ribs. 

“Koushi, maybe you should—” Azumane started. 

“What name did you give me in your phone?” Sugawara asked, interrupting his bodyguard. 

Daichi laughed. “Coffee Daddy.”

Nishinoya nearly choked on his own spit and Daichi wasn’t sure if Azumane was capable of coming more red. But what mattered was the grin that came to Sugawara’s face, how he smiled at him like nothing else in the world could matter when Daichi was there.


End file.
